FCC’s Carr Opens Probes Into Disney and ABC

WASHINGTON, March 28, 2025 – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr opened another probe into diversity initiatives at a company the agency regulates, this time aimed at ABC and its parent company the Walt Disney Co.  

“Although your company recently made some changes to how it brands certain efforts, it is not clear that the underlying policies have changed in a fundamental manner – nor that past practices complied with relevant FCC regulations,” Carr wrote in a March 27 letter to Disney CEO  Robert Iger.

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company said in government filings last month it had ended some diversity efforts.

“The enforcement bureau will follow up with more specifics,” Carr wrote.

Carr had first indicated the agency was working on a letter to Disney in a longform interview with Punchbowl News on Tuesday.

When Carr became chair in January, he also reinstated a complaint against ABC News over how the show moderated a debate between President Donald Trump and then-President Joe Biden during the presidential campaign. It had been thrown out under the Biden FCC.

After Trump won the presidential election, ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with him over on-air comments from ABC News journalist George Stephanopolous, paying $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library.

Carr has also opened investigations into NPR and PBS regarding whether they are accepting ads unlawfully. A majority of the FCC, which is politically divided 2-2, would need to vote on an official enforcement action, but Carr is still able to use the prospect of investigations and holding up transactions to pursue his regulatory agenda supported by the Trump White House.

The FCC chair has said he’s willing to block mergers if companies don’t walk back public-facing and internal diversity policies. Last month, he opened similar probes into Comcast and Verizon, which has a $20 billion acquisition of Frontier waiting on FCC approval.

“I very much worry that what you are seeing now is harassment and bullying meant to silence,” Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said of the probes on Thursday.